Diversity is good for business. Here’s why…
Having a diverse team at an inclusive workspace is not just great for humanity, but great for business too. Surprised? Read on to understand how making diversity a company policy during hiring and creating inclusive workspaces improves your bottom-line.
1. Increase in innovation & creativity
Diversity widens the perspective that goes into the ideas behind products.
When businesses have diverse teams, consisting of people of different social, ethnic backgrounds, genders, and sexual orientations, they look at problems from varying viewpoints and search for inclusive solutions.
This fosters creative thinking and innovation among employees, a fact corroborated by Harvard Business Review in their research too.
2. Attract the best from a larger talent pool
A study by Glassdoor has shown that 3 out of 4 candidates looking for jobs consider Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) in a company to be an important factor while looking for a job.
And with the workforce going global post pandemic, it is all the more important for companies to have a diverse workforce that helps them stay competitive. Companies have a chance to attract candidates from a larger pool of talent by posting in diversity-oriented job groups.
While Apple’s former CEO Tim Cook once said that inclusion inspires innovation, tech companies are notorious for the lack of diversity in talent, a problem which still persists. And to fix this gulf, diversity tech recruiting and staffing companies like Han Staffing are helping businesses ensure that they tap into the diverse talent pool available.
3. High levels of job satisfaction among employees
Companies with a diverse workforce have higher job satisfaction and employee retention.
At inclusive organizations, employees find it safe and encouraging to pitch novel ideas. This fosters a culture of free expression of thought, and equal airtime to all voices.
Employees tend to stay longer with companies who value an employee’s thoughts, challenges and happiness, irrespective of their racial, ethnic, socio-economic background.
Organizations that consider D&I in their workforce are seen as socially responsible. And employees take great pride in working for such companies.
4. Increase in business revenue
A McKinsey study on why diversity matters states that companies in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity are 35 percent more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians.
Wondering why?
Because when companies have a large pool of ideas and solutions, it gives them a competitive edge over their peers in the industry. It helps them make important decisions faster, better and create innovative products to serve a larger and diverse audience.
5. Solve Problems Faster
Another Harvard Business Review study further reveals that companies with diverse teams are able to solve problems faster.
But IT companies have mixed workplace diversity with cognitive diversity, leading to organizations hiring like-minded people (read: cisgender, white men) and creating a functional bias.
And because like-minded people think and express on similar lines, there comes a limitation, in ideas and their execution to solve the problem.
This is a common issue with technology where technology companies have traditionally catered to a monolithic target group and a similar homogenous talent pool has worked to create these products.
But with diversity at workplace moving away from being just a buzzword or trend, some sections of the IT industry are now using diversity to solve problems faster and better for EVERYONE. For example, having women adequately represented in their team has ensured Bumble’s UX and app caters to a wider audience in terms of gender and sexuality.
6. Solutions for one and all
As seen in the case above, a homogenous group of people solving problems is usually not able to imagine or solve problems for another group of people.
But when businesses have people from a diverse point of view, skills, ideas and experience looking at the same challenges, it brings out multiple ways of solving them.
And this Harvard Business Review study corroborates it, on how companies with diverse teams, are able to understand the needs of their end user better. With more and more businesses going global post 2020, D&I in workplace has become all the more important.
It is time, companies make diversity and inclusion a part of their DNA, right from recruiting to everyday company culture to creating empathetic products for their end-users. It’s time, companies reflect their customers, by having diverse teams.
Ready to make your team more diverse? Ready to start hiring for the future? Get in touch with us! Han Staffing is an IT recruitment agency with an expertise of over a decade in IT hiring, and a diverse team that can help you get there too.